Tonight, monsters walk the streets. Werewolves, witches, and weirder things, hungry in the darkness. Listen to them, their footfalls, coming down the sidewalk, across the driveway, up the path to your door. They knock, and when you open the door, they intone the ritual cant: “Trick or Treat!”

So here’s a treat (and a trick) for all you monsters and monster-lovers out there, from a guy who knows a thing or two about monsters. This is “Strange Beast,” by Orrin Grey. This story first appeared in Orrin’s Word Horde collection Painted Monsters and Other Strange Beasts. So unwrap a fun-sized candy bar, sit back, and enjoy…

STRANGE BEAST

by Orrin Grey

[EDITOR’S NOTE: The following manuscript has been assembled from notes left behind by Kennedy Sanchez, who was contracted with Deanna Bloom of Fetlock & Burridge to produce a book-length work entitled Last Days on Monster Island. The manuscript was never delivered, and Ms. Sanchez returned her advance seven days before she drowned in the swimming pool of her Tallahassee apartment complex. A subsequent police investigation ruled the drowning an accidental death. In reproducing the notes, sections printed entirely in italics indicate hand-written passages in the margins of the rest of the notes, which were printed out from her word processor and sometimes copied-and-pasted from websites. No actual manuscript for the proposed book was ever found, and the notes are presented here exactly as written.]

"David Peak captures the apocalyptic tension gripping the world today, one that is also expressed on several levels by the microcosm he has chosen to focus on: black metal." --Invisible Oranges reviews David Peak's CORPSEPAINT invisibleoranges.com/corpsepa…

"…a novel which throbs in astonishing levels of darkness right until its brutal and shocking apocalyptic ending, which fits uncomfortably within the broken world of today. A truly outstanding novel." —HorrorTalk on David Peak's Corpsepaint horrortalk.com/books/corpsepa…

What do the spirits have to tell you? Find out in the Shirley Jackson Award-nominated Word Horde anthology Tales from a Talking Board. Available now where better books are sold. pic.twitter.com/UvDP4Vjz9u

“…a novel which throbs in astonishing levels of darkness right until its brutal and shocking apocalyptic ending, which fits uncomfortably within the broken world of today. A truly outstanding novel.” —HorrorTalk reviews Corpsepaint horrortalk.com/books/corpsepa…